Back to Horticulture

Toby Hemingway spoke at COSBA about the five cultures mankind has lived through: 1. Hunter/gatherer 2. Horticulture 3. Agriculture 4. Industrial and 5. Post-Industrial. With agriculture came two huge changes: hierarchy and overpopulation.Because of the excess, hierarchy developed to "manage" the excess (ie. ruling wealthy classes). I know archeological digs also know immediately if a culture was agrarian because of their poor health (too many carbs!). Women could also give babies grain year round so they frequently weaned their babies sooner. Because nursing is a natural form of birth control for some women, women had more babies and populations exploded.So the theory is we need to return to horticulture. I know permaculture also speaks of developing wise integrated systems, but because of the cost of permaculture workshops I have not pursued it in depth.

Though I had no experience with livestock, I have been working to produce some more of my own food via gardens, goats and chickens. It's wonderful to share my life and land with other critters.I said I wanted goats and chickens and prepared for them, re-roofing the barn w/recycled tin, and everyone asked what kind of chickens I was going to get. I didn't know...and wasn't inclined to do in-depth research. I've basically learned OJT along with some web research. The critters are doing very well.

Chickens

The coop stays about 20˚ above outside night temperatures, plenty cozy f/the chickens. They molted and didn't lay for nearly two months as the days got shorter. I put an infrared lamp in the coop with a timer so it's on a few hours early morning and evening too. They're laying nicely now, 2-3 extra large eggs a day.The eggs have a natural anti-bacterial coating so it's recommended not to wash them until you use them. The black and white chickens ("Barred Rock" w/ "bars of b&w; from Plymouth Rock) lay the plain brown eggs and the plain colored chickens lay the beautiful aqua ones. All are delicious!

Goats

I was given five goats by some people whose house was struck by lightning. This is Janet when I got her and Janet now. A big belly means a healthy goat as they are "ruminating", ie. digesting well in their numerous stomachs. I learned digesting hay keeps them warm at night, so along with morning goat feed and hay, when not teaching, they also get mid-day hay, and hay between 9 and 11 p.m. Great goat website: http://fiascofarm.com/

Casper

Newborn Casper., b 10/21/11Little Windy, Casper's mom, was young and pregnant when she was given to me. I wasn't expecting the birth so soon and didn't have her birthing pen completely done. I arrived home one day with two bales of hay only to find a pile of slimy newborn in the dirty poopy goat yard. Windy rejected her. I separated them from the other goats, forcing Windy to bond with the baby. Then, I wrestled goats for the next two days, cleaning clogged nipples, forcing her to let baby suckle, finishing their pen including semi-insulated cubby, making sweater f/baby (it dipped to single digits when the baby was less than a week old), putting warm water on mama's udder to make milk flow, sealing them up in warm cubby at night....

Two months old, sweet baby Casper. Windy's udder seems really small...I think she may have already weaned Casper.So much for milk...I have yet to build milking station, but this will come in time. I'm hoping for a resident goat herder and gardener so I can concentrate on my natural building this summer. Interested?

Growing food

I'm not a natural green thumb, but am blessed with a half share of irrigation water and a site that used to be a horse corral so it is nitrogen rich. After reading about the ecosystems in soil, I did not want to till, so rather did a "lasagna garden" of sorts. Instead of layering, though, I mixed peat moss, compost, manure, topsoil and some charcoal which was put on top of wet cardboard. First season, almost no weeds! I get good tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and cukes. I want a little bean field, asparagus, and beets....better do ph test next year...This is an heirloom tomato. One slice per sandwich!

Nothing like home-grown food! I froze a lot of peppers and tomatoes f/winter.

"Hurricane straps" will keep the log in place along with the saddle notch. Later, there will also be anchors into the cob, all to hold the roof on in very high winds.One hurricane strap (on the big end of the log) I purchased at the hardware store and for the other two I doubled up strips I cut from recycled galvanized tin, measured beforehand, cut and drilled at home.

The Girder is set! The tarps over it will protect the shade tarps (I now buy cotton canvas tarps; also king size sheets from the second hand store.) Cotton tarps serve as water catchment. These "under-tarps" will also protect the wood from rain that might get past the overlying ones (yet to be placed).The site doesn't look like much because all the stone work and cobbing done so far is covered, the cob to keep it from eroding over winter, the drystack stone because it has diatomaceous earth (microscopic sea shells/soil from the sea floor) in it to keep insects out and I don't want it to wash away, and the masonry posts to keep moisture from damaging the masonry (many freestanding stone piers have a "cap" of some sort. But the girder is UP!!! It's 24' long fyi. Up up and away! Summer building has begun!

SHADE UP

The next task was to get shade up since it makes an indescribable difference in the summertime workability & enjoyability if there is shade. As said in former posts, I've figured out king size sheets from the second hand store work well, but tarps from China disintegrate badly, some leaving thousands of particles of silver who-knows-what. There was one high quality tarp I purchased several years ago from Northern Tool to cover the site before masonry began. It was the floor inside last summer, but I cut it in strips to cover the walls last winter and alas, the name of it is lost. Last year I decided to buy a big cotton canvas tarp after Mindy gave me an old cotton canvas tent that I found to be excellent material. A 10'x16' cotton tarp is around $100 but will last much longer. This summer I bought a second. Got shade!On Thursday June 19th my niece Danica arrived on Amtrak's Southwest Chief– from Hawaii
via Southern Calif. (Did you know trains get 460 mpg. per passenger?!)

June 21, 2014Good friend Kate Jobgen joined us. I got workbenches set up, they undertook the task of uncovering the walls that had been covered since last fall, removing straw & burlap under tarps. We camped overnight & had a jolly good time!

June 22, 2014

Before cobbing the door frame must be set as do window frames when the wall height rises a bit more. But when pouring the ATV ramp into double doors, I made the mistake of having the slope extend too far into the stem wall, depriving the door sill the base it needed to be stable over time. At first we put the door up, added screws to hold the cob, and put in supports to keep it plumb. But after a nearly sleepless night, I decided it needed a proper base. June 21, 2014Danica & I went up, rocked the double door frame to the interior of the building, made some cob to use as a form on the downhill slope of the ramp, & poured concrete to offer the proper support, using a board to keep it level.

Double door frame rocked back so we can fix the sill plate. Notice the two cherry doors on sawhorses in back.

Concrete poured. Cob serves as form that fits right up to anything irregular. It is on the right.

I can't resist posting this hilarious image. Kate could live in a bivy sac, but she works for Coleman doing marketing & was comped a "condo" tent which she decided to set up inside the building site. Redundant shelter! Next time we'll all sleep in it....except I snore....but different tents don't fix that problem do they!

Jun 27 & 28, Friday & Saturday

Friday was a New Moon and my wise sobrina suggested an earth honoring ceremony. Making shelter in harmony with Nature being my ultimate goal here, this was such a wonderful thing. On the drive up she picked wildflowers, and around the site sage and grasses.

Afterwards, we raised a plank above double doorway and I put one bolt in. Thinking the bit too short, I put on my list to bring a longer bit to tomorrow.

Day 8 on site this summer:Saturday we arrived late morning ready to make some good progress. The auger bit from home didn't work well, so I used the bit I'd used yesterday but made entry portion larger to accommodate thick top of lag bolts and it worked. Lag bolts ratcheted in with socket wrench and the beam was up.Danica started making cob then she too a break to help me carry the heavy cherry doors to the frame. I'd made the frame last summer. The doors were $200 from Craigslist and the heavy duty hingers were from ebay. I'd built the frame in my studio around the doors then hired a skilled woodworked to hang the doors in the frame I'd built. He'd said cobbing should be done with door in place. I'd done that with my other single door last summer, but even so the frame listed a bit into a bit of a trapezoid through it will still work (or did the land move?!)The first door we put into place fit pretty easily– hinges on door fitting into the hinges on frame with a little encouragement from crescent wrench to align the two. The second was more difficult. The hinges were off a bit, more at the top, but I knew it was that the frame was off of right angle (the carpenter had removed my corner braces, who knows, maybe for the better). We got the bottom one aligned and pin in with coaxing from wrench, but upper ones were still off. I used large woodclamp to pull the second one into alignment, and we finally got the top two to fit by opening the door. Success! After this, we double-checked the door frame for plumb then Danica continued making cob while I mixed mortar and set some small stones at the bottom outside so blowing snow would have to get higher to reach cob. I cobbed directly on top of my wet mortarted stone as I'd done this with success on my cob wall. After about 6" of cob, Danica took over cobbing on the West corner and I on the East side of the doors. By the time we finished it was 9 p.m. and the light had diminished too much for photos of details, but they will come.Afterthought: wooden door sill is separated from the concrete by a special foam from a roll made for this purpose. Wood in contact with concrete gets moisture that will eventually deteriorate it. Some of my mortar from stones is in contact with the bottom of the door frame, realized after all was done. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Good job, though. One learns from the process.

Note the method for holding the door frame plumb: angled planks to the ground secured at the base with heavy stones or stakes with a board between them.

July 1, cobbing up around doors. Five batches of cob.

Window frames

WEST SIDE

NORTH SIDE:North side, two window frames are set plumb and level. The contraption with a bucket is to be the top of a niche that will be a curved arch. The bucket will be for the form. The base is already made with stones and masonry.Yes, it's quite tempting to just keep working on this wall, but again, in The Hand Sculpted House, Ianto says it's best to work on the whole building at once. While it's quite impossible to make enough cob to do that and keep it all moist, I think it unwise to only work on one wall, for the weight is tremendous and I think runs the risk of breaking the concrete stem wall of the foundation. So below, you see work begin on the Western wall.

Western wall, southern corner. This is rock hard dry from last summer. It is watered, then quite a lot of slip is poured on it and brushed around.And THEN!!!!....to the right, step-out window frame is cobbed into place. Danica stomped cob and I put it on the wall. Eventually I said don't even make cobs (lumps for easy deliver). Just put each batch in the wheelbarrow and straight onto the wall it went. Lovely.Danice said she likes stomping cob and I said I love building with it. We were a great team today.

West window detail.

Detail of outer sill. Yes, the tree was left to anchor ropes that have given shade for the last few summers of working. It had begun to list & I'd anchored it to another nearby tree with heavy rope, but alas, it eventually had to be cut. The tall stump is still in use to anchor tarps.

The inside of the step-out window. I worked solo the day I did this, around August 1. At first I made a cob sill as deep as the wall, but then realized it would be awkward to step out of, so I carved a step....then realized it should be deeper so made it two steps deep, then built up the sides. I made these big changes by sawing down into solid cob then horizontally, like cutting out big pieces of cake. Then moved the cob elsewhere and cobbed in it. Sorry I didn't have a camera that day.

"Break Room" next to the site: shaded place for resting, having lunch and enjoying the day. Kate came down from Denver for a day again and here she is with sobrina (niece) Danica.

EAST WINDOW

Detail.

SOUTH: large windows begin to go in

August 6: Window is a solid pane french door. I made the frame at home on the large table constructed at the beginning of last summer. I purchased the cedar 4x4 fencing posts then, too, so they've dried out nicely in the last year in the carport. Hauled it up the hill solo on dolly.

Frame assembly: I purchased a very long-shafted auger drill bit to attach to my cordless drill. The large frame of 4x4 cedar was assembled by augering two holes per corner, applying glue & hammering in oak dowels that had to be sanded a little first.

August 7: Deck screws were attached to the underside, cob is put on the wall to the right height and levelled. Cob is put on the window underside of the sill and it is raised into place. Boards are screwed onto the sides and the tilt is plumbed using the level. Then rocks are pushed up against the support boards to secure them in the right place.

I hadn't anticipated curve hanging out from under the window sill, and in trying to figure out how to protect the cob, I'd thought tin? stone? Danica said "stone"! I realized aesthetically, she was so right. So I walked down the hill and drove 500' to my neighbors stone field, gathered about 30 stones and put them in the car, drove to my electric gate, transferred them to the wheelbarrow and brought them up the hill. They then had to be washed with a steel brush. Before I left for the day, I laid a rough sequence out on the window sill.

STONE: less than half a mile from the site CLAY: 20' away SAND: $16/ton CEDAR FRAMING: affordable WINDOWS: recycled

August 8: Stones are mortared into place. I laid them out on the cob with plastic under them so they wouldn't get dirty. I folded back the plastic for two or three stones and put mortar under where they would be laid to give them a waterproof solid bed.Each stone cantilevers (hangs over) beyond the cob below, but getting mortar between them out into the overhang is difficult. It just plops to the ground.Innovation! Duct tape! Tape on underside of dry stones, brush water on stone before mortaring carefully with soft hake brush vs. spraying which might detatch the duct tape...then mortar! Duct tape will come off later.

Sculpting the inside curve was so wonderful. This is what I have been waiting for and working towards for five years. Notice the masonry is covered with a wrung-out wet towel. Masonry must stay moist for at least two days to cure properly.Note also the highly textured cob on the sides of window are "spines & ribs" to make "tooth" for the next passage of cob to hold on to.

Another simple innovation: Keeping cob from cracking on edges can be a challenge! ...getting tarps to be as air-tight as possible on a wide curving wall? Right! ...not easy. Potters use light plastic & it occurred to me to pin it to the cob with little staples made from baling wire. It works great!

Site set up

Standing in the same spot, these two images show the efficiency of the main cobbing area. Water catchment far left. Next to it a board covering a trough where clay is soaked. Sand pile (almost completely depleted) in the middle. On the right is a small table where we've begun to put cobs as we make them. They are then put in a tarp up on the porch where they can be loaded and wheel-barrowed around the building to where they are needed. Slip and buckets kept on the steps. There's a tray for cobbing tools kept under the worktable (gloves, cobbers thumbs, square-bladed trowels, sponge & spray bottles).

August 10th: This has been the coolest wettest summer I've ever experienced here. The meadows, now protected from overgrazing with one line of solar-powered electric fence, are so green, water catchments are full, and there have been toads about the building site. It also means I won't drive up the roadpath, so every day we hike up with cooler, baskets and maybe the drill. Every evening, we walk back down. On her way down Danica turned around for me for the photo.